As an engineer, I have often seen myself and my colleagues struggle to maximise the opportunity to achieve innovative, game-changing outcomes through working collaboratively with creative people such as graphic designers, architects, fresh young minds or even big thinkers. Maybe it’s something in the engineer’s DNA that leads us to see only the constraints in other ways of thinking.

I used to worry that working with creative people would mean relinquishing control – something that could possibly spell disaster. Now on reflection, I realise our biggest achievements at Height have resulted from letting the creative juices flow, without allowing the engineering side to micro-manage the whole solution.

Since starting Height in 2013, I’ve built a team of engineers and creative people who successfully work together to develop world-class bids and procurement solutions for clients in New Zealand and overseas. Here are some of the things I’ve learnt about working with creative people:

Height's unique approach to tendering and procurement

Don’t assume you know what the creative solution already is – 101 stuff really but how often have we as engineers (technically competent as we are), come prepared with the solution already in our heads and effectively used our team as an extension of ourselves to document and create what we think is right? Be open minded, creative colleagues can provide a fresh perspective and clever solutions you may not have even considered.

Provide context, not look and feel – this is the challenge and where we often slip into predetermining the outcome. The trick here is to describe the broad outcome that you want to ultimately achieve in the context of the audience, key messages, emotions, risks, etc. Being too prescriptive in the early stage will frustrate your creatives and limit their ability to make something new and exciting.

Let creative people be creative – this is often where the magic happens, so once briefed, I find that if I give my creatives some space and a chance to work up a concept without my meddling, it gives them the opportunity to explore their full creative and innovative thinking. If they need any more detail or information from you - they’ll ask.

Understand that creativity is an iterative and interactive process – the power of working up an initial concept provides a starting point for everyone to work from. Its ok for it not to be right first time, it will likely take some refinement and reworking.

Review with the end audience in mind – this is where we can undo all the good creative work and revert to our original predetermined solution. Try to put yourself in the end users’ shoes (they may not be engineers) and use your wider team to challenge, review and update the creative solution.

So, engineers, have faith and a little trust in those creative colleagues. Relinquish some control and you might be surprised to see what game-changing or profitable solutions may come from it.